[29] “Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. [30] And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have participated with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’
Matthew 23:29-30
Reading this passage in Matthew today reminded of the old bit by the comic, Jeff Foxworthy. If Jeff Foxworthy was a comic in 1st Century Judea, he might have said, “You might be a Pharisee if ____________________ (fill in the blank).”
In a similar vein, we could say, “You might be a Pharisee if you think you would not have opposed Jesus if you lived in Judea in the 1st Century.”
Of course, Jesus wasn’t being funny when he confronted the Pharisees, and this wouldn’t be a comedic schtick.
I don’t think Jesus was saying it was wrong for people to build tombs to the prophets or decorate them with flowers. Jesus was saying it was wrong to say (and think) they would have treated the prophets any differently.
The Pharisees are to us what the prophets were to the Pharisees. We may be tempted to think that we would embraced Jesus if we lived in 1st Century Judea, and would not have opposed him or called for his crucifixion if we we were in the crowd that shouted, “Crucify him!”.
But, that is no different than how the Pharisees thought and what the Pharisees claimed about the prophets that were resisted, derided, and sometimes killed by the “religious” people of their day. Jesus was clearly implying that the religious people of his day (the Pharisees), were no different than the religious people in the days of the prophets.
Can we say, then, that we are different than they?
Only if we adopt the same thinking as the Pharisees! (If I am understanding Jesus accurately.)
The Pharisees thought of themselves more highly than they should have. John came preaching repentance, for the Kingdom of God is near! But, the Pharisees didn’t repent. They didn’t think they needed to repent.
When Jesus – who was God in the flesh – came into the world, the Pharisees didn’t recognize Him or receive Him. (John 1:9-11) They did not prepare themselves for his coming by repenting, as John the Baptist exhorted. They adopted the wrong attitude about what God was doing in their time, and they didn’t hear and respond to what God God’s messenger was saying.
Pharisees say the right things, and they do the right things, but they fool themselves. What the Pharisees said and did was a façade. Their hearts were not aligned with their actions. They claimed to be experts in the Law, but Jesus called them blind guides leading blind followers. (Matt. 15:14)
Pharisees were concerned with appearances and the way people saw them. Pharisees were not as concerned with their heart attitudes. Jesus called them “white-washed tombs” that were empty inside (full of dead people’s bones and uncleanness). (Matt. 23:27-28) We need to be careful that we do become like the Pharisees.
Daniel Mann does a good job of explaining Why Christ, as God Incarnate, Had to Die for Our Sins. In reading his explanation, my mind goes to statements like God’s “transcendent love” and “total abhorrence for sin”, God’s “righteousness” and “divine forbearance” for sin, and the price that had to be paid “to satisfy God’s righteous character”.
Daniel describes his own reaction to these concepts formerly, as a non-Christian. He felt God was a “deceiving sadist” until one day he realized that Jesus was God incarnate, that God did not merely sacrifice a created being – God sacrificed Himself in human form!
Indeed, that is the central point of Christian belief, which is described beautifully and poignantly in Paul’s letter to the Philippians (2:5-8):
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature [form of] God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature [form] of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!
These things would be small consolation, also, if not for the victory on the other side of the cross (Phil. 2:9-11)
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
That Jesus was fully man and fully God incarnated into a man is key to the understanding of Christianity. That God is three “persons” in one is also key, as it provides some explanation how God can incarnate Himself into the form of a man and die (in human flesh), though God remains self-existent and eternal, the Creator (and not a created being).
Not that there is no mystery in this. I concede this is hard for creatures who are limited dimensionally to wrap our heads around these ideas.
Finally, it explains how (and why) death to Jesus in the flesh had no power over him. As God incarnate, death “could not hold him”. (Acts 2:24)
But, I am not writing to clarify these aspects of Christian doctrine. I want to focus on Daniel Mann’s personal revelation that Jesus was God incarnate, and his death was voluntary – God sacrificing Himself, and not God sacrificing some created being.
This realization made all the difference for him. When he really understood this distinction, he began to see the love of God that was demonstrated in that act of self-sacrifice – something God did not have to to, but He did it for us because He loves us.
Other people, I know, are not convinced. Indeed, if a person understands Jesus to be human only, and not God incarnate, the story makes no sense.
Another stumbling block is God’s “abhorrence for sin” and the need to satiate a “righteous” God. These Christian concepts are foreign territory for many people. Why, if God is so loving, does He demand sacrifices for sin?
The title of this blog piece seems so simplistic. Yet, this simple statement spoken by Kyla Gillespie to Preston Sprinkle in their conversation on his podcast, Theology in the Raw, hit me like a breath of fresh new air this morning.
Before getting to my point in this article, I want to reference an article I previously wrote that was largely about my perspective in my journey to faith and through faith to the spiritual place I am now. I called it, God Meets Us Where We Are.
I mention my article because it was no small revelation to me that God amazingly accommodates to us in offering us salvation. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ Died for us!” (Romans 5:8)
Again, that title seems simplistic, not very insightful, really, more like a platitude. Yet, as I unpacked the revelation of God meeting us where we are in relation to my own life journey, it didn’t so simple. It certainly wasn’t obvious to me that God meets us where we are.
Most of the world, including me at one point in my life, believes that we need to become good enough for God. The goal of most world religions and of most people who are seeking to gain salvation, nirvana, or whatever concept of “heaven” or acceptance by the divine creator of the universe people have, is to meet whatever standard that is required.
When I was asked one day why Jesus should let me into his heaven, I immediately searched my life for the positive things I had done that hoped would convince him to let me in. I don’t think I was alone in that thinking.
When the man who asked me that question eventually told me (after patiently listening to me rattle off the good things I had done) that I could do nothing to earn my way into heaven, I was floored. I wasn’t even convincing myself that Jesus should let me in!
“You mean it’s a free gift?! No one can earn it, so no one can boast?” I recited to myself, asking rhetorical questions to wrap my head around that revelation bomb that was dropped on me! Mind blown!
I have never been the same.
I grew up in an era of spiritual seeking. From Zen Buddhism to Hari Krishnas, I was just another spiritual seeker trying to “find myself”. many people like me took to the road looking for truth and meaning anywhere we could find it. Even before Oprah, people were looking inside themselves and everywhere else for God and ultimate meaning wherever they could find it.
It really isn’t all that obvious that God would come after us. After all, he is the sovereign creator of the world. Why would he have anything to do with human beings who are here today and gone tomorrow? Who are we that God should come to us?
“[W]hat is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” (Psalm 8:4)
Yet, Jesus says God loves us! He knows each one of us so intimately that He can count every hair on our heads! He knows when we come and go; He knows the words we speak, even before they trip off our tongues; and He is near to us wherever we are! (Psalm 139)
His attitude towards us is like the shepherd who seeks a lost sheep when it has wandered off. (Matthew 18:12-14) He seeks after us!
The story of Kayla is complex. She struggled most of her life with same sex attraction and gender dysphoria. She ran from church because she didn’t think she belonged and sought meaning in her dysphoria and sexual identity.
We are not different than Kyla. Most people hide the complexity (messiness) of our lives from other people because of shame and confusion, and many other things. But, God knows us. Intimately.
And He loves us. He loves us enough to die for us in our current condition! He meets us where we are.
That basic concept is the backdrop for my thoughts today: If God meets us where we are; we need to be willing to meet other people where they are.
The parable of the workers in the field exposes an attitude and way of thinking that gets in our way of knowing and understanding God and our relationship to Him. This parable is confusing and nonsensical to our naturally prideful and selfish inclinations.
The parable of the workers in the field begins with some people at the break of day who agree with the owner of a field to work for one denarius (a day’s wage). Throughout the day, the owner went out and solicited more workers to work in his field.
Workers began at different times during the day. Some workers didn’t even begin to work until late-afternoon. When the day was over, the owner of the field paid everyone the same wage (one denarius), regardless of when they started.
The workers who labored all day were upset. They challenged the owner, saying “Why are we being paid only one denarius when the workers who didn’t work the full day are being paid the same?” Some of them didn’t work more than a couple hours!
The owner’s answer to their question is something that typical Americans have a hard time understanding and accepting: he said, “I paid you what you agreed to work for. If I want to be generous to everyone else, what is that to you?” (See Matt. 20:1-16)
But, it isn’t fair! Right? Isn’t that the natural response we have? Nothing gets the blood rushing to the head like someone getting more than what I got! Especially, if they didn’t earn it like I did!!
As a person who grew up Catholic, these things did not make sense to me either. People should get what they deserve, right? Naturally, people should earn their own way. I would not ask for more than what I deserve, but I have a hard time with people getting the same as I do when they work less than me.
We think this way generally as Americans with our rugged individualism, labor unions, and the American Dream (which may have more to do with hard work than dreaming to hear someone tell of it).
The message that comes through this parable load and clear is that God doesn’t think like we do. God does what He wants, or (at least) He seems to have a different measure of fairness than we do.
Romans in the day of Jesus weren’t completely different than modern Americans, though they valued power and might, perhaps, more than we do. They despised the poor and vulnerable. The people who were able to exert their power and influence over other people were valued (and envied) most. This parable wouldn’t have made sense to romans either.
The Jews in Jesus’s day were proud of their heritage. They earned their status with millennia of adherence to the Mosaic Law. They bristled at the idea that upstart Gentiles might come along and gain some interest in God’s kingdom.
This parable made little sense to First Century Hebrews also. Maybe we all have our cultural barriers to this kind of message.
I image Jesus was a favorite son. He was the good young man, mostly polite, and obedient He was keenly interested in Scripture and all things pertaining to religious life that was the heartbeat of any Jewish community.
He was also not quite like the other young men, a bit odd, maybe a bit too into his heritage, if that is possible. They were all good Hebrews, but he seemed to take it a bit far, even for them.
Maybe they couldn’t put their finger on it, but people seemed to agree that he made them feel as if he thought he had an inside track. He sometimes made them feel like outsiders.
Jesus traveled one day to Nazareth where he grew up. He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath. (Luke 4:16) He stood up in front of his lifelong friends and neighbors, asked for the Isaiah scroll, and read from it:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Luke 4:18-19
When Jesus finished reading from the Isaiah scroll, he rolled it up, handed it back and sat down without immediate comment. All eyes were on Jesus during that pregnant pause. Then Jesus concluded:
“Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Mic drop moment. Followed by a moment of stunned silence. We might say they were flabbergasted. At least at first.
Jesus had a remarkable way about him that made people wonder about him, even if they were not completely comfortable with him. He had always seemed older than his age, but he spoke with insight and certainty like an elder of great age, experience, and learning.
They knew Jesus, though. They knew where he worked. He did not have the credentials fit for his seeming attitude. Nazareth was a forgotten, insignificant place in the Hebrew community, though it wasn’t far from more beaten paths. Jesus was always the enigma.
They knew Joseph was a quiet and simple man. He never called attention to himself. Mary always glowed with the pride of a mother who sees more in her children than anyone else on earth, especially in Jesus. No one could blame her.
As often was the case with Jesus, they didn’t know quite how to take him. “Good news to the poor”, “freedom for prisoners”, “sight for the blind”, and “the year of the Lord’s favor”: this was a good word. All good Hebrews have a hopeful expectancy for these things, even as they always seem just out of reach.
Still, they always hope. That’s what they do. They cling to God’s promise
That Joseph was always so quiet highlighted to them all the more how remarkable Jesus was that he seemed to have such a grand, if not slightly delusional, perspective. They were polite and appropriately appreciative, but they didn’t even have time to wonder what the elders had planned for Sabbath that day, when Jesus interrupted their thoughts. This time he dropped a grenade:
“Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’” (Luke 4:23)
What… is… he… saying? “Is he talking about himself? … Really?!
They were well aware of the zealots who riled people up in their area in recent years. Those trouble makers caused serious problems for good Hebrews just minding their own business and trying to get by.
Their minds played over the words Jesus just read: “The spirt of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me.” …. “Don’t tell me he believes he is God’s anointed!” This guy has a messiah complex!
As if that were not provocation enough, Jesus really pushed them over the edge with what he said next:
“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown.I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land.Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” (Luke 4:24-27)
Not only did Jesus appear to be claiming he was God’s anointed one; he seemed to be claiming that God cared more about the Gentiles than his own people! What else could be the point of referring to the Elijah visiting the foreign widow and Elisha healing the foreign general?
I have been reading through parts of Exodus. Today, I continued reading about Moses and Pharaoh. Pharaoh hardened his heart to the plea of Moses to let the Israelites travel three days into the wilderness to meet with God, and Pharaoh did not take the signs Moses performed to heart.
Up to this point, Pharaoh’s magicians matched all the signs Moses and Aaron performed, so apparently didn’t take those signs seriously. Aaron threw his staff to the ground, and the magicians did the same. It didn’t matter that Aaron’s staff swallowed up the magicians’ staffs. The magicians matched Moses and Aaron sign for sign, and Pharaoh paid no heed to them.
Moses turned the water of the Nile to blood. Pharaoh’s magicians did the same, “and Pharaoh’s heart became hard”, it says. (Ex. 7:22) He turned and walked away into his palace, and he didn’t take it to heart.
Aaron stretched out his arm with his staff and caused frogs to emerge all over the land. The magicians did the same, and Pharaoh was not moved, at least not right away.
Later, Pharaoh asked Moses and Aaron to “Pray to the Lord to take the frogs away…, and I will let your people go….” (Ex 8:8) Moses did it, “But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen….” (Ex. 8:15)
Moses responded by having Aaron summon a plague of gnats. This time the magicians could not duplicate what Moses did, and they said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” But, “Pharaoh’s heart was hard….” (Ex. 19)
Notably, the Pharaoh’s heart became hard, or he hardened his heart, after the previous displays. After the plague of flies, however, the Pharaoh’s heart was hard.
Pharaoh’s heart was already hard at this point. He had been hardening his heart all along, but Pharaoh’s heart was already hard by the time Moses and Aaron summoned the plague of flies and the plague of flies “ruined the land”.
Even though Pharaoh’s heart was hard at that point, “Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, ‘Go, sacrifice to your God here in the land.'” (Ex. 8:25)
Sometimes even people with hard hearts toward God will have moments in which they seem to believe, or seem to repent, but there is no heart change. They desire to be delivered from their dire circumstances, but nothing more. It isn’t really a true change of heart, and it doesn’t last.
Moses insisted that the people be allowed to leave the land and go into the wilderness, but “Pharaoh said, ‘I will let you go to offer sacrifices to the Lord your God in the wilderness, but you must not go very far. Now pray for me.”’ (Ex. 8:28)
People often make deals with God. People bargain for relief from the pain or difficulty that brings them finally to God as a last resort, but they turn to God out of desperation, and they don’t really mean to keep their part of the bargain. When people are “forced” to the point of praying to God as a last resort, they may not come willingly, and their hearts many not be changed if relief is all they want.
This was the case with Pharaoh:
“Then Moses left Pharaoh and prayed to the Lord, and the Lord did what Moses asked. The flies left Pharaoh and his officials and his people; not a fly remained. But this time also Pharaoh hardened his heart and would not let the people go.” (Ex. 8:30-32)
Pharaoh didn’t understand that the God of Moses and Aaron is the God who gives all people life and breath. He saw “their” God as a means to an end: a possible solution to the immediate relief he desired. Pharaoh didn’t perceive God as his God too!
We are often tempted in the same way to view the Bible, church, and God Himself as a means to our owns temporary ends. We aren’t looking down the road. We don’t appreciate that the universe, this earth, our world and our very beings are wholly dependent on God!
Once we get the relief we want from the immediate difficulty we are facing, it’s easy for us to harden our hearts again. Once we are out of trouble, we resort back to a hard heart and a stiff neck. There is no lasting change.
This is a human tendency we all have. All people can be “religious” at times. Many people go to church on Sunday, or once in a while, maybe on special holidays, but they live in Egypt the rest of the time.
We can be religious in the same way that we might carry a lucky rabbit’s foot or consult a medium. We want something. We want good fortune and good health, but we don’t want to change.
God should not have to make a deal with you. If you are bargaining with God for some immediate relief in your life, your view of God is too small, and you are missing the mark!
Navigating by Faith 